Fuselage

December 26-27, 2009

The Flap Actuator - 11.5 hrs.

With the landing gear mounts out of the way, I turned my attention to the flap actuator. This involves installing a weldment in the fuselage behind the seats, and the associated motor, fittings, covers, and so on. I started by deburring and drilling out the holes in the weldment, and preparing it for installation. A trial fit proved to be difficult. It's very tight, and I am going to have to think about this before doing something I may regret. The weldment is held in place with some white plastic blocks. Two of them were fabricated and drilled to the F-705 bulkhead back when I was putting it together. The third one is in the middle and it's done now. I just followed the plans. I cut, drilled, and then cut this block in half, installed it in the fuselage with the weldment and drilled it to the floor. Then it's removed so nutplates can be put in underneath. All straightforward stuff. These nutplates are a bit of a challenge to get riveted in, but doable. It just takes some time. Then, the channel cover for the baggage area is trimmed so it will clear the block. You can see the result of all this work in the pictures below.

As far as I'm concerned, this is now permanently in place. I hope I don't ever have to take it out.

Next, there are a number of small parts that need to be fabricated for the motor assembly, housing, etc. Shown above are the F-766A channel with the "feet" clecoed on and drilled. Then there's the F-785B angle with the 3 holes drilled in it, the F-766B tapered angle, the F-767 plate with the bend in place, and if you look close, the small F-766D tubular spacer. There's one more part not seen because it's inside the F-766A channel. It's the F-766C reinforcement plate. It's drilled and clecoed to the inside of the channel, on the right side. Also not shown, there's a hole that needs to be drilled in the end of the motor shaft for a safety wire. I dug out my smallest bit, a #60, and test-drilled a hole in some scrap to see if a safety wire would go through it. It worked just fine. But then the bit broke while I was trying to drill the hole in the part. So I ended up drilling a 1/16" hole, like many others have done. This wraps up all the work in 2009!